Also see:
AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications •
Also see below:
Anger Builds Over Colombian Raid •
Go to Original
After Deadly Assault on Guerrillas, Chávez Orders Troops
to Colombian Border
By Juan Forero
The Washington Post
Monday 03 March 2008
Calling a Colombian military strike that killed a guerrilla commander "a
cowardly assassination," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
on Sunday closed his country's embassy in Colombia and ordered tanks, planes
and thousands of troops to the 1,300-mile border the two countries share.
Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, ejected Colombia's ambassador and also
mobilized troops in response to the assault just inside Ecuador on Saturday
that killed 17 guerrillas, including Luis Edgar Devia, a top commander in the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Ecuador and Venezuela are allies.
Speaking on his nationally televised show, Chávez lauded Devia
and ordered his defense minister to mobilize troops to Venezuela's western border.
He also blamed the United States, a staunch ally of Colombian President Álvaro
Uribe, for fueling the conflict in Colombia.
"Move 10 battalions to the Colombian frontier immediately, tank battalions,
military aviation," Chávez said. "We are not going to
permit the North American empire, which is the ruler, to allow his lapdog, President
Uribe and the Colombian oligarchy, to divide or weaken us. We will not permit
it."
Another Venezuelan ally, Nicaragua, which is disputing Colombian sovereignty
over two islands in the Caribbean, also criticized Colombia. Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega, a Cold War foe of the United States, called the strike against
Devia "an act of total provocation" that reduces the chances of peacefully
settling Colombia's conflict.
Although celebrated in Colombia as a major blow against the FARC, the attack
has triggered the most serious regional crisis in recent years. Venezuela, Ecuador
and Nicaragua frequently criticize Colombia's military activities in the region
and are detached from the United States, which provides billions of dollars
in military aid to Colombia.
"This is a political, not a military reaction," said Adrian Bonilla,
a professor of international relations at the Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences, a university in Quito, Ecuador. "What is clear is that military,
police, intelligence and security cooperation between Colombia, Ecuador and
Venezuela are completely fractured at this moment."
The Colombian government said Saturday that Devia was killed in heavy combat
between rebels on the Ecuadoran side of the frontier and Colombian troops on
the other side.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said fighters were then called in to bomb
the rebels and that after they were killed, Colombian troops crossed the frontier
to recover the bodies of Devia and another rebel commander, Guillermo Torres,
better known as the writer of revolutionary ballads. The Colombian government
said Uribe called Correa to brief him about the attack.
On Sunday, Correa called the incursion into Ecuador "the worst aggression
Ecuador has suffered on the part of Colombia" and recalled his ambassador
in response. In a news conference in Quito, he said that although Uribe had
told him the attack took place in battle, an Ecuadoran army patrol that examined
the camp had determined otherwise.
"They were bombed and massacred while they slept, using pinpoint technology
that found them at night, in the jungle, for sure with the collaboration of
foreign powers," he said.
Myles Frechette, a former ambassador to Colombia who works as a consultant
in Washington, said the Colombians probably weighed the strike on Devia against
the potential fallout from going into Ecuador. But he said repairing the diplomatic
damage would be a challenge.
"Uribe has got to go down there, meet with Correa, calm him down, and
he's going to have Chávez fuming at the border," Frechette
said. Uribe is "in a pickle, in the sense that diplomatically he's got
to get himself out of this corner that he's got himself in."
Uribe probably faces a far more difficult challenge with Chávez,
who has become increasingly antagonistic toward Colombia as his popularity has
fallen in Venezuela over problems including rising crime and food shortages.
On Sunday, Chávez raised the possibility of war if Colombia entered
Venezuelan territory, emphasizing Venezuela's new military hardware, including
Russian-made Sukhoi fighter aircraft.
"This could be the start of a war in South America," Chávez
said. "Because if it occurs to you to do that in Venezuela, President Uribe,
I'll send some Sukhois, so you know it, pal."
Chávez also said Uribe heads a "narco-government" beholden
to the Bush administration. "Álvaro Uribe could be the head of a
mafia but never a country. A mafiosi can never be president of a country, less
so a South American country and less so a country like Colombia," Chávez
said, according to Union Radio in Caracas.
Chávez had warm words for Devia, who had joined the FARC in the
1970s and was wanted by the Colombian government for drug trafficking and murder.
Chávez recalled that the two first met in 1995, three years before
his election as president, and that they met twice after he took office.
The president asked for a minute of silence for Devia, who was better known
by his nom de guerre, Raúl Reyes. "We pay tribute to a good revolutionary,
who was Raúl Reyes," he said.
Go to Original
Anger Builds Over Colombian Raid
By Chris Kraul
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 03 March 2008
Ecuador, saying it was lied to about slaying,
sends troops to border. Bogota alleges rebels and Ecuadoreans met.
Bogota, Colombia - Ecuador and Venezuela said Sunday that they were moving
thousands of troops to Colombia's borders, a day after Colombian forces killed
a leftist rebel leader in Ecuadorean territory. Bogota later charged that high
officials in Ecuador met recently with the slain rebel, Raul Reyes, to accommodate
the guerrillas' presence there.
The developments raised tensions in a region that has been on edge in the several
months since Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez had
a bitter falling-out. Reyes, the nom de guerre of Luis Edgar Devia Silva, was
the second-ranking commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC.
At a news conference late Sunday, Colombian National Police director Oscar
Naranjo said that files in three laptop computers recovered in a jungle camp
a mile inside Ecuador, where Reyes' body was found, show that the rebel met
Jan. 18 and Jan. 28 with Ecuadorean Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea to discuss
several issues, including stationing army and police officers "who were
not hostile to the FARC."
Naranjo also said documents show that Larrea and Reyes discussed a meeting
between Reyes and President Rafael Correa in which Reyes' "secure transport"
would be guaranteed.
"The questions posed by these documents merit a response from the Ecuadorean
government," Naranjo said.
In a nationwide address late Sunday, Correa rejected Colombia's apology for
the incursion and said Uribe lied when he told him Saturday that Reyes and 16
other FARC rebels were killed in hot pursuit.
"They were massacred," Correa said.
The FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, has been locked in a 40-year war
with that nation's government. It holds 700 hostages, a source of outrage in
Colombia.
Earlier Sunday, Ecuador said it was moving additional troops to defend its
northeastern border with Colombia, expelled Colombia's ambassador and recalled
its own ambassador to Bogota. Saturday's killing of Reyes was a "violation
of the territorial integrity and legal system of Ecuador," a Foreign Ministry
statement said.
Meanwhile, leftist Venezuelan President Chavez said he was sending 10 tank
divisions and 10,000 troops to his country's border with Colombia and mobilizing
fighter jets against a possible incursion.
"God save us from war," Chavez said in his weekly television address
Sunday, after observing a moment of silence for Reyes. But, he said, Colombia
would not be allowed to "violate our sovereignty."
The FARC has always used the lightly patrolled jungle border areas of Ecuador
and Venezuela to regroup and resupply. But aggressive military action ordered
by Uribe in recent years has driven rebels over the borders in greater numbers,
analysts say.
The Colombian army killed Reyes in a mission that Colombia's Defense Ministry
said began on its side of the Putumayo River but ended about a mile inside Ecuador.
Experts in Venezuela and Colombia believe Chavez to be tolerant, even accommodating,
of the Marxist FARC rebels, for whom he frequently expresses admiration. The
FARC this year has released six of the hundreds of hostages it holds to Chavez
representatives in Colombia.
But Ecuadorean President Correa is said by Colombian and U.S. officials to
be concerned about the growing presence of rebels and the violence and drug
trafficking they have brought with them. Reyes was thought to have lived in
a semi-permanent camp on the Ecuadorean side of the border to escape the Colombian
military's reach.
On Saturday, Correa's response to the Colombian incursion was muted. He lamented
the loss of life and acknowledged that FARC rebels often "infiltrate"
Ecuador, but said nothing critical of Colombia. On Sunday, however, Correa's
government took a harder line, demanding an explanation and apology.
Cesar Montufar, a political scientist at Simon Bolivar Andean University in
Quito, Ecuador, said Correa may be "ceding to Chavez's pressure."
What makes Sunday night's announcement surprising is that U.S. and Colombian
officials recently had praised Correa's cooperation with Colombia in the war
against drugs and for improving relations with the United States.
--------
chris.kraul@latimes.com
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Print This Story
E-mail This Story